Volunteer Highlight

Before the first young woman ever walks through the door, a house has to become a home. Ours did not get there on its own. It got there because an entire community picked up tools and showed up.

What unfolded over these past months was, in the truest sense, an all-hands-on-deck effort. And by the end of it, we had paid only a few small costs in labor.

Here is some of what that generosity looked like.

Light, countertops, and floors

The WireNut donated their services and installed all of our lighting, a gift that quite literally brightened every room. A local business owner donated brand-new countertops and gave us our new flooring at a deep discount, turning two of the biggest line items in any renovation into a fraction of their cost.

Gifts like these add up quickly. Every donated fixture and discounted material was a dollar we could keep pointed towards survivors.

The wall that had to come down

With our new license, we are able to have a higher occupancy of survivors at Sarah’s Home. Sarah’s Home moved from a capacity of 5 to 8. But, in order to make more space in our on-site school, Aspire Academy, we had to take down a wall. The catch was that it was load-bearing.

So a group of volunteers who do this for a living amazingly took it on. We had a structural engineer donate his time to create the plans and a group of contractors enact the plan. They brought the wall down and set a support beam in its place, opening up the room while keeping everything above it sound and safe. It is the kind of job most organizations would pay a contractor a great deal to do. For us, it was done by skilled hands that asked for nothing in return.

Designed down to the details

None of it would have come together without our design volunteers. They helped us plan and shape the whole space — the layout, the finishes, the feel of each room. They made sure the result was not merely functional but warm and trauma informed.

Thank you

Throughout this project, we were able to have such few labor costs. Nearly every one of these gifts came from someone who will likely never meet the survivors who benefit from their work. An electrician. A business owner. A crew of skilled volunteers. A design team. None of them did this for recognition. They did it so a survivor they will never meet could come home to a place that is safe, whole, and beautiful. That is what a home built by a community feels like. And these young women will feel it, even if they never hear the story behind a single beam or countertop.

To the businesses who gave their work and their materials, and to every volunteer who lent skill and hard work, we want to say a huge thank you. We never could have done this without you.